Chamber Orchestra

Attended the Chamber Orchestra by BSM on Saturday after my class. It featured Reinmar Seidler, a Cellist along with the BSM Chamber Orchestra. There was also a Junior Orchestra of the School which started the program. There were also some unaccompanied pieces by the Cellist. I cannot appreciate much as I'm still a novice in Classical Music. But I enjoyed the evening, even though I was sitting alone.

However, there were a few unwanted moments, when the power system had some problems and one piece had to to be stopped in between and was started again. The lights got switched off for a few seconds and thud noises from the speaker when the power went off and on. I didn't expect these things, but anyway the music was good and I hope the Chamber Orchestra wont get such embarrassing moments again.

I've learnt some new terms used in Classical Music - The Orchestras, The Conductor, The Concert Master etc. There was a program sheet once I entered the Auditorium. It had a list of all the music that they were to play. The Conductor was informing the audience about the music briefly before the music starts. Also the Cellist told a bit about his instrument, how different it is from the normal Cellos etc. People are clapping only once the complete piece ends :) Unlike the usual Rock Concerts where the audience never stops shouting!

Coming back to the Orchestra Terms - a duet is performed by 2, trio represented by 3 quartet by 4 ....Normally more than 4 would be known as an ensemble. Chamber Orchestra is an ensemble with about 30 or so musicians. A Philharmonic is bigger and a Symphony Orchestra is even bigger consisting more than 100 or so.

A Conductor is the one who gives directions, cues, tempo etc to the players. The baton in his hand will be used to give the beat too - like 3/4, 4/4 etc. There are different baton directions that he follows to denote the beat. The following Wiki link gives the different notations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conducting

The Concert Master is like a leader in the 1st Violin section in the orchestra. This Chamber Orchestra had 2 Violin Sections and the Concert Master is seated first. Any solo Violin piece is played by him.

So these are some of the Orchestra related terminology that I came to know from my teacher and the internet. Will be posting more as I come across any. Also came to know that not many Orchestral pieces are written with Guitar as the main solo instrument. Sad to know that but anyway Guitar had mostly been a solo instrument. There might be a Guitar Concert in this month (by my teacher). I'm looking forward to that.

Trouble with the treble Clef

Thats my Manuscript book full of Treble Clefs in all shapes :) ...Never thought I would be doing something similar to copy writing that I used to do in School!
Anyway this is the Treble Clef sign and my teacher told me to practise it and also some notes on the staff lines. As a Classical Music student, I am required to learn those.

Right now I am having trouble in playing the notes by seeing them on the sheet music. It is exactly like learning a new language and I am taking some time to get it. I am comfortable with the rhythm part, but changing notes still requires a lot of practice. There were some good exercises on Notes on the strings, frets etc. in the book and the practice is going fine.

Starting to read music

The class on this weekend was an intro to reading music. Came to know how the notation is better and what dimension it adds to interpret music. Also came to know about things like Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Orchestra...some of the Classical Music Jargon. Its fun to know but mind you, I soo feel like a geek now :)

Most self-learners use the tablature to play a song or they do it listening by the ear. Of the two, listening by the ear is always better. Anyway there are drawbacks with both these methods.

If we are used to learn a song by listening, then the only option to try a new song is to listen it and then try it. Loads of Classical Music is stored in the form of Notation as, sadly, there were no recordings at that time. So it is not possible to reproduce all those old Classics.

If we are used to learn a song by seeing the tabs, the limitation is that they just list out plain notes. No way to know the timing, unless we hear the song.

But the music notation does not have these limitations. It gives the time signature, the notes, the duration of the notes, tempo etc. just about everything. So we don't need to hear to the original song to play it. If we have the sheet music for the song, we can play it in the exact way!

This site http://www.teoria.com/tutorials/reading/index.htm
has an excellent tutorial. What is wonderful is the Flash exercises towards the end to practise the rhythm and the notes. Too good to miss.

The Classical Guitar Posture

There are some basic things that can be followed for best results while playing Classical Guitar. And then, it is up to the comfort of the player to try out alterations to find the best playing position.

It is important to note that there is no single fixed way to hold the Guitar. Different players have different styles but most of the basics are followed. These basic things will help in the speed, economy in movement and clear sound.



The Sitting Posture:-

• Sit on a flat chair, back straight, feet flat on ground and arms relaxed.
• Left leg on foot-stool (normally around 7 inches; height can be varied for comfort)
• Guitar supported by upper left thigh, inner right thigh, centre of the chest and inner right arm
• Right hand elbow should not fall on the Guitar and the right hand should be at an angle to the bridge as in the picture so that the right hand knuckles are parallel to strings.

The Right Hand:-

• Right hand positioned over each of the six strings by pivoting the right arm from the elbow
• Fingers are denoted by their Spanish names;

1. Thumb - Pulgar (P)
2. Index - Indice (i)
3. Middle - Medio (m)
4. Ring - Anular (a)

• Thumb (P) to play 6,5 and 4 strings (Bass Strings); i on 3rd, m on 2nd and a on 1st string.
• i, m, a fingers will be curled towards the palm while playing frees-strokes.

The Left Hand:-

• Thumb should be on the back on the neck and should be perpendicular to it. It should not be visible from the front.
• Thumb should not be applying any pressure, should just gently touch the neck and follow the motion of the hand.
• Pivot the fingers at the large knuckle to raise and lower the fingers.
• Sliding the left hand up and down the neck of the guitar using a rotation at the shoulder
• Positioning the left hand fingers over the desired string by moving the left arm at the elbow.
• The point of contact with the strings will be with the finger tips. This makes sure that the fingers do not obstruct the other strings.

I am still adjusting to the basic posture and I'm planning to put up my pictures once I am sure I got the posture right. As my teacher would suggest me changes, I hope I would be in a better position after some more classes.

The following page has a detailed write-up on the basic posture, left and right hand basics.
http://www.classic-guitar.com/lesson3.html

Flamenco Guitar

This was one of the videos which really got me interested in learning Flamenco. Flamenco is a music genre that originated in Andalusia, Spain. It is in 3 forms: Cante - the song, Baile - the dance, and Toque - the Guitar. It is believed that Gypsies brought the Flamenco style from India! There is a strong resemblance with our ragas, and also with the hand movements in Indian dance.

Source: Flamenco-World

Coming to the Toque , the guitar playing - Flamenco Guitar is one of the most challenging Guitar techniques. Played entirely with fingers, like Classical, it has many advanced techniques like the Rasgueado, Alzapua, Golpe etc. The video above shows Grisha Goryachev playing the composition Con Garbo y Salero by Sabicas from the album Flamenco on Fire.

Flamenco to most of us in this part of the world, is may be a Desperado OST, Bailamos, Latino songs etc ... But Flamenco is not that. They might be using some similar playing techniques but that has got nothing to do with the Rhythmic structures in Flamenco or the art of Flamenco as such.
Check out the following link from a very informative Flamenco site - very nice one :-) What Flamenco is not?

Flamenco is gaining some popularity here. But anyway I didn't find any Flamenco Teachers here in Bangalore. So, I started Classical Guitar lessons as it will surely help in the similar finger-picking style of playing. Anybody who wants to learn Flamenco, but does not find any teacher can surely try learning Classical Guitar to start with. Who knows I might end up learning from...may be someone in Spain later in life?? :-) Well I don't think this happening anytime soon. For now I got this book El Arte Flamenco de la Guitarra by Juan Martin from a friend in US.

First Class

That was the photo of the small teaching studio. Had my first class and it was about the posture, right hand and left hand basics. As expected, I needed some adjustments to my right hand and left hand positioning. Will be putting them in the coming posts. I was very happy with the class as all my doubts regarding my posture & fingering were answered and corrections were identified. It is a bit difficult to change the techniques that we might have built up during the course of time. But nevertheless, I have started working on the new posture and looks like I am coping with it soon.

The correct right and left hand techniques are very important in the long term. Not only one can attain good speed and economic movement but it also helps in reducing the chances of getting Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSI). Musicians and people working on Computers are vulnerable to it. Visit the following page from the blog of my friend Dr Gopichand for some useful info on RSI.

http://drgopichand.blogspot.com/2007/11/repititive-stress-injuries.html

Waitlist to Enrollment

I've been to the BSM (Bangalore School of Music) the other day for enrollment. That was my 4th visit. Waitlist to enrollment took long time...We need to submit a form with our details initially and then they would assign us to some faculty. But as the number of prospective students keeps growing day-by-day, I came to know that there is a huge waiting list for Guitar almost running into hundreds! Blame it on the film-stars and rock-stars for popularizing Guitar?

Just for the information - I submitted my form in Feb and got the admission now in June. I visited a couple of times in between to check if any slots were available. Since I'm working, I said I would be able to come only on weekends and that caused a bit more delay. The School is in RT Nagar and to go from Electronics City to RT Nagar after office is something which is next to impossible on a weekday. So finally I got my slots on Saturdays, starting from tomorrow. It is a one-hour class and 4 classes per month. And there are different courses which we can register to - Group/Individual. I've registered to Individual Course since I am not an absolute beginner to Guitar. But I'm a beginner in reading music notation.

The Guitar method at BSM is only Western Classical. We need to have the Classical Guitar (Nylon-Stringed) for it. And reading notation is taught. Learning to read the music notation and playing along would be something new and tough for me. All these days I am used to play with tabs or listening by the ear. More on the Notation and Classical Guitar once I start the classes.

Website of The Bangalore School of Music - www.thebsm.org

The Journey

I don't know how different this might be from millions of blogs on music or Guitar in particular, but I just wanted to blog my own experiences with Music. Since years I have been using the internet and blogs to learn Guitar and I feel it is good to give some insight to readers who are like me some years back. I started to learn Guitar basics from the internet and my dear friend Vinod :-) and then continued learning from Vibes School.

I have now joined The Bangalore School of Music to learn Classical Guitar and I see this a good reason to kick-start my blog. I am looking forward to share all my experiences and it would be nice for me to watch how my thought process changes and how I progress as the time goes. Also I feel this would be helpful to all my friends who are learning music...friends from college, office, vibes school and elsewhere.

Welcome to the Journey of my Life with Music!